NORTHAMPTON — A letter signed by municipal leaders, school superintendents, school committee members and educators from across the state is asking Gov. Maura Healey and the state Legislature to take urgent action to address what they say is a deepening fiscal crisis facing public schools.
The largest collective call for school funding reform in recent months, which has been endorsed by elected and appointed officials in Northampton, Amherst, Easthampton, South Hadley and Belchertown, as well as those from most other area communities, was delivered to Healey’s office in Boston Tuesday. That gave some of those who signed the letter an opportunity to meet with her staff to express the urgency and importance of the issues outlined in the message.
Specifically, the letter is demanding “decisive state action” in next year’s budget, such as using available Fair Share surplus funds to address the fiscal crisis affecting public school districts.
“It is increasingly clear that public schools across our state are facing significant fiscal challenges caused by severe flaws in our school funding policies that are rapidly undermining our students’ constitutional right to a high-quality and fully funded public education,” the letter states.
They are demanding fixes to the funding formulas that shape whether students in their communities have access to stable staffing, safe schools and the supports to which they are entitled.
Massachusetts Teachers Association President Max Page, who lives in Amherst, and Vice President Deb McCarthy issued a statement of support.
“Today we brought the full weight of more than 1,000 signatories straight to Gov. Healey’s doorstep,” they said. “This fiscal crisis is statewide, it’s urgent, and it cannot be kicked down the road any longer. Our students are already losing the vital services that help them learn, thrive and feel safe.”
The statewide union observes that school districts are laying off staff by the dozens, not only at the end of school year, but a recent midyear 23-educator reduction in the Whitman-Hanson Regional School District.
The letter asks to strengthen the Special Education Circuit Breaker Program; fix the Chapter 70 inflation cap; fully reimburse regional and non-regional school districts for student transportation costs.; significantly increase rural school aid.; further mitigate the financial impact of charter schools on traditional public schools; and make targeted investments in the staffing and programs needed to best support student mental health.
The letter follows from a recent forum, held at Greenfield High School on Nov. 7, in which leaders offer input for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Department of Revenue’s Division of Local Services study of the local contribution components of the state’s Chapter 70 school finance formula, and determining if changes are necessary.
That session brought out many from the area.
Amherst Town Council President Lynn Griesemer stated that due to declining enrollment, Amherst receives “minimum aid” from the state, leading to budget cuts at the schools. This, in turn, causes students who are able to choice out to schools with more programs to do so, spurring a further decline in enrollment.
At the same time, while aid declines, the costs of running a school have increased, particularly in fixed costs such as health insurance, Griesemer said.
“We’re experiencing 5% to 6% a year increase in our costs,” Griesemer said.
“Everybody thinks we’re rich, but we’re not. We’re actually one of the poorest communities in Massachusetts,” Griesemer said.
“We need to fund our schools in a much more fair way, but we need to be able to continue to provide support for our town services as well,” Griesemer said.
Amherst Town Council member Cathy Schoen said that when enrollment goes down, the school’s fixed costs remain.
“We still have to turn on the lights. We still have buses, we still have cafeterias,” Schoen said
“From our point of view as school committee members, the various funding and reimbursement systems established by the state put an overwhelming burden on our towns, and obviously require our towns to limit funding other departments,” said Amherst School Committee member Sarah Marshall, who also serves on the Amherst Regional School Committee, which oversees the schools where students from Amherst, Pelham, Leverett and Shutesbury are educated.
“More importantly the systems are stretching our staff, teachers, administrators, custodians, administrative assistants to the breaking point as we ask them to do more with fewer people,” Marshall said.
Northampton City Council-elect Meg Robbins said that another large expense schools face is programming and special needs students, and urged DESE and DLS to consider the number of special needs students in Chapter 70 funding and limit how many students can be sent to charter schools so they would stay in their local schools, as well as the funding associated with them.
“Our city schools with 44.1% high needs students look very different from our community population. We lose more non-high needs students every year to surrounding charter schools,” Robbins said. “In Northampton, we send nearly $2.6 million a year to charter schools.”
Melissa Matarazzo, superintendent of the Gateway Regional School District in Huntington, explained why school funding is a challenge for a rural district.
“We serve fewer than five students per square mile. We have three schools who draw from a wide geographic reach and we cannot gain the efficiencies of scale that other districts with higher student density can,” Matarazzo said. “We don’t believe we can further regionalize.”
Meanwhile, others who signed the letter, including those in more urban areas, noted how better funding will improve all schools.
“We know that every dollar we allocate to our schools today strengthens the long-term economic and civic health of the commonwealth,” said Boston Teachers Union President Erik Berg. “Our schools are asked to do more and more each year, and state funding has not kept up with the pace of inflation or the needs of our students”
Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents Executive Director Mary M. Bourque also pointed to the costs rising faster than revenues
“As inflation continues to soar, our cities and towns simply cannot close budget gaps on their own using local funding from taxpayers,” Bourque said. “If Massachusetts is expected to lead the nation in public education, the state must leverage all of the funding sources at its disposal to provide districts, schools, educators and students the resources they need to excel.”
Reporter Madison Scofield contributed to this report.